Project Title: Of Muslim Kings and Hindu Gods: Remembering Mughal Visual Culture in Colonial North India

Project Abstract: The emperor Aurangzeb’s death in 1707 purportedly rang the death-knell for the Mughal empire in India. Yet, it was precisely at this moment that “successor states” drew on Mughal courtly cultures to create a new way of life. But how did non-Muslim communities beyond these “successor states” remember the Mughals? My research suggests that the material culture of modern Hinduism was indelibly transformed by earlier Mughal visualities. Indeed, the god Krishna was often depicted in courtly settings, seated on Mughal floral carpets similar to those preserved at Shangri La. The paradisiacal symbology of Mughal floral imagery resonated well with theological imaginings of Krishna inhabiting a bejeweled garden. Through a study of the DDFIA’s collection of Mughal arts, Ray suggests that the appropriation of earlier Mughal visual forms in colonial India allowed for an anti-colonial sentiment articulated through a politics of inheritance that resisted the colonial present.